I’d like to see a car driving game where you can drive in the country and occasionally cows get on the road. If you collide with a cow it’s replaced for a moment by a butcher’s-chart cow outline showing all the different cuts of meat (shank, brisket, rump roast, etc.), and then all the cuts of meat go spinning off into space.
While not exactly the same, the arcade version of Cruis’n USA had cows on the road as you drove through and it let you run them over. Or as another great game once said:
“Cow launched!”
I’d like to see a driving game with maps of real places. Maybe a computer-based one that you could download specific cities or states – or maybe the computer downloads maps from a central server based on which direction you’re traveling in the game, sort of like Google Earth. You could perform a real cross-country drive, planning a real route using real highways or surface streets, without spending a fortune on gas.
But seriously – real maps. I want to drive through my town or county, or through Chicago or St. Louis or New York. Landmarks would be required, town-specific cool places/architecture/geography would be a humongous plus.
I’m looking for realism here though. I don’t want to race, I don’t want checkpoints, I don’t want cash to upgrade my car, I don’t want police chases, I don’t want to butcher cows (I guess those could all be options, but…), I just want to drive – on real maps.
Something I’ve wanted to see for a long time now, and I’m surprised it hasn’t happened yet…
When you play the game, it goes onto the internet and, using your zip code, it checks the time of day and the weather- which then becomes part of the game world. In other words, if it’s nighttime outside, it’s nighttime in the game. If it’s raining outside, it’s raining in the game.
Not a huge feature, but one which wouldn’t be too hard, if you’re already going to have weather and day/night cycles in your game.
I gotta ask the obvious question… why not, instead of playing this game, actually just go out into the real world and drive? (I mean, I’d understand if you wanted the experience of drag racing a Ferrarri through real city streets, or just going nutso destruction derby or something…)
Anyhow, something I always wanted to see back when I played RPGs (and bear in mind that I stopped around Wizardry 6) was a plot twist where the wise old guy who sends you out on quests turned out to be evil. Or perhaps where the wise old guy who sends you out on quests actually came along on the quest with you and kicked enormous amounts of ass. It just always seemed so silly that the fate of the kingdom depended on a party of 1st level characters.
This is probably possible with Wii’s weather- in fact, the Wii version of Madden NFL used it to choose the condition of the field during the game. And Animal Crossing on the GameCube used the system’s internal clock to set the time of day in the virtual world- though the GameCube didn’t have any weather (or online capabilites, for that matter).
The cow thing cracks me up. I can just imagine a gag like that in an old Warner Bros. cartoon or something.
Mega Spoiler:
See Jade Empire, more or less. It’s somewhat complicated.
See Final Fantasy Tactics. Eventually, (OK, he wasn’t your old mentor) Thunder God Cid join the party, and he’s powreful enough to kill anyone and everything in the game, more or less solo. In fact, the game is less fun from then on simply because he’s too darned tough. There really isn’t a point to using anyone else.
Midtown Madness 2 had pretty accurate maps of San Francisco and London. Its a really remarkable little racing game. Whats remarkable about it is that at my company we STILL play it almost every day, and this game came out 7 years ago. And I work with hardcore gamers, so its not like we have no other options…
The real hook of the game is the LAN play, using the Robber Teams option. you can have up to 8 players and you split up into 2 teams, red and blue. Then every one appears in the town, and a gold object appears randomly somewhere. Your team wants to get the gold and deliver it to your goal which changes location every delivery. If the other team has the gold, you want to slam your car into the car of whoever has the gold to take it from them. The game suffers from some minor collision issues and latency, but for the most part it is insanely fun, addictive, easy to learn, and reasonably deep. I think its among the most underrated games of all time.
The Getaway (PS2) uses a real map of London and Driver: Parallel Lines (PS2/Xbox) uses a real map of New York.
Your wise old mentor (who happens to be a 50 year old black belt priest) joins your party for the trek into the villain’s hideout in La Pucelle Tactics (PS2).
Boktai (GBA) uses a light sensor in the cartridge to make the game take place during night or day in the game depending upon the sunlight outside.
“You cannot pass ! I am a servant of the Secret Fire, wielder of the Flame of Anor. You cannot pass ! The dark fire will not avail you, Flame of Udun ! Go back to the Shadow !”
There areLOTR games, some of which have Gandalf as an occasional character.
Oh, I do. When I first got a car, I would frequently just go out and drive around. I’d make sure the tank was full, then pick a road out of town I hadn’t taken very far before and get lost (literally), then find my way back. I did this with my hometown when I first got a car, as well as both times I moved to college and the only time I’ve moved to a new city not-for-college. I also make frequent trips across the state, to go home or visit my girlfriend, and I try to find new routes each time (if I’m not pressed for time).
As for why? Money mainly, and time. Gas = expensive, car upkeep as well. And the time aspect…seems obvious. I can’t just up and drive the old Route 66 tonight – my job might not like it when I’m a few hundred miles away by tomorrow. With the game, I could start from wherever, drive as long as I wanted, save, and pick up tomorrow where I left off. And there’s the safety aspect too. Travel across country enough times (especially if you don’t have extra money to spend on car upkeep, see above) and you’re looking for trouble. Keep in mind I’m looking for realism – Google Earth contains (some) elevation data, use it. Many of the cities have 3D models of the more famous buildings created by the users, use them. It wouldn’t be some hokey leisure trip with Sega Genesis graphics that blatantly change from metro to cornfields to plains to desert to beach, it would be, well, realistic.
Maybe put in some competitive features so it would appeal to more folks. Allow the user to set up a course using a start and finish or checkpoints along the way. Is it quicker to use the interstate system to get from, say, St. Louis, MO to Bloomington, IN, since there’s no direct route, or would it be quicker to take an as-the-crow-flies path although the roads aren’t built for that kind of speed?
There is an old Maxis game called Streets of Sim City. You could load any of your Sim City 2000 cities, and drive around in them, with 3D rendered buildings and such. That’s my inspiration I guess…but with much better graphics.
And Test Drive Unlimited had Oahu. But it would be cool to download any state or country and drive around. That’d be cool. Kind of like a Flight Simulator but for driving.
I can’t wait for games to be so complex that no one bothers to get 100%. Then I wont feel the pressure.
More lever or break-action shotguns.
A flamethrower that shoots napalm that sticks to stuff, and keeps burning. (Postal 2 comes close, but not on the nose.)
More cowbell. (And by “cow” I mean “sulfur mustard” and “bell” I mean “grenades.”)
In a FPS i want to be able to shoot the doorknobs off any locked doors with my shotgun/rocket launcher/machine gun/whatever.
I would love to see a RPG storyline that rivals a classical work of fiction. I mean… I love me my RPGs, but nothing comes close to the plotline, emotional invection, or plain old DRAMA that a great book does.
Of course, I probably just need to play more RPGs 
I want a Lawnmower Simulator. Not to chop up zombies with, just to mow lawns. Preferably a FPM. I could start off with a push mower, then gradually upgrade to a ride-on. With weather effects, timed runs, real time grass-growing, tricycles to avoid, the works.
I want a campaign-based wargame that puts you in the position of more or less a real theater-level general with all of the political fighting that entails. In order to win, you have to survive the war in your current position or higher. Challenges include changing political climates, military contractors that are only as honest as they absolutely have to be (which means your equipment is not perfect or even mostly perfect), variable media coverage, hospitals, and those ever-pesky “other countries” with their politics and media and things that gravely offend them (like, in some cases, your continued existence).
I want a spy game that more closely resembles actual spy work, which means the game company can’t just “Total Conversion Mod” some crappy FPS they have lying around. Real spies use guns less often and phones more often. Detective and investigative reporter skills are paramount. Challenges include any politicians who know your real name and job.
I want a game where you’re a nobody being stalked by another, scarier nobody. “Nobody” means “no skills remotely useful to the task, and a life to maintain in the meantime”; that is, you can’t hunt the stalker down yourself (you’ll end up dead or in prison and then dead) and you can’t go John Connor because you’re a lot more like Dale Gribble. The police don’t actively hinder you but they have many more pressing concerns. (Unless you become really proactive, at which point they come after you.) Challenges include getting and learning to use a legal self-defense system when you know the stalker has likely already gotten a fairly good illegal offensive system, and the fact you don’t know when or where anything important is going to happen.
Genuine freedom of choice. Here’s the big enemy, here’s you in your little village, pick a way to stop him.
Microsoft Flight Sim does this. You can take-off from your local airport using your computer system time and it’ll download accurate weather from the internet.
I want to see a game that blends turn based strategy, real time tactics, flight simulator, and first person shooter. In the turn based mode you’d act as the general in command of the units in your theatre of war. You have as much time as you like to think out your attack and defense plans. Your lower ranking officers carry out your orders as AI or you can choose a mission to control directly as an RTS.
You may also choose missions to be involved with personally. Got a particularly important bridge that needs to be taken out? You take the place of one of the pilots on the attack mission. Need to sneak into a camp and free an important prisoner? You take the roll of one of the soldiers in an FPS style mission. Basically it’d have pretty much every war genre available for you to play. If you only want to play it as an FPS then the AI can take care of the strategy. Or you can treat it completely as a strategy game and let the game take care of the details.
Similar in a way to Medieval Total War but taking the next step to give you more freedom in how you play it.
With apologies if I’m teaching you to suck eggs,
May I recomend Baldur’s Gate 2 with expansion pack, Throne of Bhaal?
If you do have a romance with Aiere the final scene when you’re making the big decision is very emotional
And Knights of the Old Republic has some great scenes.
If you can draw bastila back from the darkside after she’s fallen in love with you, I can’t help but grin like a teenager on his first date
And of course that game has a plot twist as worthy as the first Star Wars movies.
I want a modern war game. A proper one. I want to build air bases and carriers and bunkers. I don’t want to build a “war factory” fifteen yards from the front lines. I want real weapons and a proper scale to fight the war over. I want my infantry to sneak around the outside of poorly guarded tanks and throw explosives at it before it knows whats happening, then get blown away by a single shot from the next tank. I want my planes to dominate until some nasty low life pulls out a rocket launcher and takes me down. None of this “low hit points” rubbish. I wanna wage a war.
Edit: What 1920s Style “Death Ray” said.